Dumpimg Boinc

[Joe]

After 15 years of seeing the Boinc program become more and more restrictive as to what programs I am allowed to run I finally decided this is BS and I'll go elsewhere.

I'm thinking I'll run Collatz to 250 mil but I'm pretty much done with everything else.

So what are the non Boinic projects out there?

 

[Fardringle]

I'm curious, what restrictions are you talking about? The only "restrictions" I have found are the occasional projects that don't suspend when I tell them to, and I just don't run those few projects. Other than that I haven't ever seen any program restrictions of any kind...

 

[Orange Kid]

If you go to http://stats.free-dc.org/stats.php?page=index# there is a list of non boinc projects. I run alot of DPAD normaly and Folding@Home for the December race. There are many others there. We have TeAms on those projects too.

 

[Joe]

I'm curious, what restrictions are you talking about?

I liked to move between projects for races or just to reach a personal goal. I like to download what I want when I want but Boinc says no idiot..we will decide. Tonight have 200 GPU tasks on a machine and I cant download any CPU tasks for SRbase because they wont finish in time.

Just stupid..

 

[Fardringle]

I jump around between projects very frequently and don't think I've ever seen that problem unless I set the additional work buffer too high. I usually leave it at 1 day except for special situations like building up work ahead of a race.

 

[Plimogz]

I can't say that I've tried all projects, but my experience with the projects I have participated in has been that I can choose whatever WUs I prefer on the project home pages.

***

Why not just abort those GPU tasks -- the abort command recycles WUs quickly and doesn't much delay the project, so it is an acceptable solution to unwanted work. And modify your preferences to only receive whatever work you want: opt out of GPU work, choose another sub-project, reduce your work buffer, etc.

 

[Ken g6]

The only big problem I've had with BOINC preventing work is that I can't download more work while any task on the same project is suspended.

Anyway, PrimeGrid also has non-BOINC projects. Get your PSA badge!

 

[Joe]

Honestly, I've been thinking of getting out of Boinc since Bitcoin.
The thing that was originally appealing, and if memory serves, the major selling point about Boinc was that it would allow users to attach to multiple projects. It was assumed, at least by me, that Boinic projects were interchangeable e.g. they could work on all computing platforms.
Bitcoin has IMHO only accentuated how truly weird some of us nerds are. I guess it boils down to being to embarrassed to be associated with them...

BTW Plimgoz. I have multiple GPU's on that machine and its a buffer I've used for years the hardware hasn't changed just the idiot programming of the Boinc client

 

[VirtualLarry]

I liked to move between projects for races or just to reach a personal goal. I like to download what I want when I want but Boinc says no idiot..we will decide. Tonight have 200 GPU tasks on a machine and I cant download any CPU tasks for SRbase because they wont finish in time.

Just stupid..

Why is it stupid, that they put the science before your personal project preferences? WUs have deadlines. Just because you want to crunch X, if there are already Y WUs from a different project scheduled, then if your decision to crunch X would result in Y being past their deadline, it won't let you, unless you manually abort the Y tasks.

I think that your rant is largely unfounded, and that you are a self-centered person. DC is about science, not just personal point goals.

 

[petrusbroder]

Well, I don't agree with your complaint.
I often switch between projetcs; set a project to "no new tasks", then abort the WUs I don't want to crunch, free thus CPU and/or GPU-resources and thus download the WUs I want.
I am also careful to select the subprojects I want to crunch (e.g. in PrimeGrid).
For races I increase the buffer; for those projects I support for a long time I have a 10-days buffer, for others (on a different cruncher) smaller.
IMHO BOINC has a good enough tool box of options to do what ever you want and how you want it to do. You just have to try them and see which setting suit you ... I have different settings for the computers in my crunching farm compared to my main computer and that my wife uses.
I do complain (in my head) about some projects, which seem to hog resources, but if I see that, I decide if the project is worth the resources; if not, I leave the project.
In my set of values (as you can see I have more than 13 years of experience) science is first. Stats, milestones, accomplishments are second but these make it more fun. And that's why crunching is a hobby: you have to have some fun, it has to give you knowledge and experience and it is a great bonus if you are part of a good community (such as TeAm AnandTech, IMHO).

If you have lost the fun in BOINC-ing, well, then it is time to leave.

Thank for all your contribution to the TeAm's standing and all the best in your future crunching!

 

[GLeeM]

Tonight have 200 GPU tasks on a machine and I cant download any CPU tasks for SRbase because they wont finish in time.

I feel your pain here and completely understand Though I think in this case it is the new project having a short completion time while they get things figured out and not a BOINC thing.

How about "Not requesting tasks: don't need" when there are three cores not running anything? Granted it is because I want to run two or more projects and I have "<max_concurrent>4</max_concurrent>" in the app_config.xml file. But why shouldn't the other project know to get work for the empty cores? Why do I have to increase the buffer for that project (and then get 2 million WUs from the other)! Aarrgh!

Currently I am trying to see how long a SOB WU will take to finish on my 4770K. Every eleven hours (because of "Switch between applications every 660 minutes") I have to suspend the other project so that the SOB WU will continue oh, just dawned on me, I have to try the "max_concurrent" thing for this

Truly, BOINC is designed for "set and forget", it will do fairly well for those that don't switch projects as often as we do.

But didn't we have a great time with the last month of the Formula Race - did we gain four or more positions by changing projects so often and quickly

We have to do what we must to keep interest going. Science will work long term for some. If stats and milestones keep me going, that is better than stopping.

As for the above posts, I am somewhat shocked and disappointed (we usually don't kick a guy when he needs a pick me up). I can only blame worry about how the sale of Anandtech will affect the TeAm. Usually the taken over company does not do well. Anyone remember DEC or Compaq?

Non-BOINC: Folding@home, DPAD, Seventeen or Bust

 

[Assimilator1]

I only see 1 post which is a bit harsh & could be described as a 'kicking'.
Dis-agreeing is not kicking.

I also disagree with the op about BOINC, I have no problems switching projects (IIRC ), but that doesn't mean he doesn't have problems.
Nor have I found it restrictive, sometimes I can't run some parts of a project because my gear is old, *shrug* science moves on & is going to want to use newer h/w with new abilities as well as being simply faster. This is not limited to BOINC though, Folding@home seems to move on faster than many BOINC projects!

You can't expect to d/l as many WUs as you like when all projects (AFAIK, bar DPAD) have deadlines for their WUs, if you were to hoard a load for a while you might hold up part of a project.
And yea sometimes the deadlines can be short, or the goal posts change but this is down to the individual project, not BOINC.

Anyway Joe, I hope you sort out your DC problems & carry on crunching for us .
And maybe we can help with your BOINC problem? Unless you've already asked?

Anyway, I've run Folding@home & DPAD aka Muon1 without any major headaches, AFAIR

 

[Rattledagger]

One of the great things about BOINC is, it's open-source so if you hit on a client-feature you absolutely hate, you can just take the source-code, change the relevant part and build your own client.

For the wast majority of users on the other hand, using the normal BOINC-client with the built-in safety-measures makes sence.

Ken g6 mentioned one safety-measure that was added, after some users suspended work in a project, for so continuing filling-up with more work for the same project, meaning they got more work than had any hope of ever finishing before the deadline.

Another safety-measure is, if you're already full-up with work for project X you should not get any work for project Y. But of course, it's trivial to override BOINC, since it will take you only a couple seconds to hit "suspend" on project X and hit "update" on project Y to get some work for project Y (assuming they have work available).

This ability to very easily override BOINC-client in case you wants to "micro-manage" is another of the great strength of BOINC.

GLeeM mentioned another example, wanting to run a single task for a project until this task is finished, while he can run other tasks on the other cores/GPU's. This is easy to do, I've done it many times with the very long-running CPDN-work. The clue is to force this particular task to have a very short time-to-deadline, as long as the task has run atleast a single second, it's no problem if the deadline is actually in the past. This of course means to manually set the deadline yourself, but this is another example of users is allowed to "micro-managing" BOINC.


How is the non-BOINC-clients?

Most of the ones I've used is either finished, like UD's "think"-project, or has switched to using BOINC, like SETI@home and Climateprediction.net. The only non-BOINC-client I'm still ocassionally using is the Folding@home-one...

... But for anyone commenting about BOINC-client being "restrictive" I seriously doubt going to Folding@home is a good move...

 

[Assimilator1]

One of the great things about BOINC is, it's open-source so if you hit on a client-feature you absolutely hate, you can just take the source-code, change the relevant part and build your own client.

If you know how to code , but otherwise good points

 

[GLeeM]

If a TeAmmate (first seen: October 14, 1999) has a few drinks and gets frustrated with things that annoy him and he makes a rare post ... well ... um

And another one bites the dust ...

The porch light is on Joe.

 

[Assimilator1]

Why do you say another 1 bites the dust? I hope this isn't true , I understood from his 1st post that he's ditched BOINC but is considering Collatz or possibly other non BOINC DC projects.

What did you decide Joe?

 

[GLeeM]

Why do you say another 1 bites the dust?

Not positive but I think he left the TeAm?

He used to be #1 on the TeAm in MOO with 275,000,000 - http://stats.free-dc.org/stats.php?page=team&proj=moo&team=173

I can't find him listed with the TeAm on any projects' stat page. Can you?

 

[biodoc]

He's still listed here: http://forums.anandtech.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=&f=15

But he's listed at Moo as not having a team: http://moowrap.net/show_user.php?userid=1596

He was upset by the Bitcoin Utopia thing and I see Bok has now 2 sets of stats. One with bitcoin and the other set without bitcoin.

Joe was ranked 406 overall w/o Bitcoin in the stats and 524 with Bitcoin in the stats. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why he was upset?

I'm glad Bok made the split in the stats. Go to FreeDC stats and look at the navigation bar at the left to see what I mean.

 

[biodoc]

He's still listed here: http://forums.anandtech.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=&f=15

Here's the right link: http://stats.free-dc.org/stats.php?page=userbycpid&cpid=eac6e5f5124cb8eeca106af0da5e5055

 

[GLeeM]

Not positive but I think he left the TeAm?

Here's the right link:
http://stats.free-dc.org/stats.php?page=teamoldusers&team=TeAm+AnandTech

 

[Assimilator1]

I hope he hasn't left

Btw, probably a daft question, but what's bitcoin got to do with DC?
Ok the coin 'creation' is on DC principles but it's not crunching for a science project, didn't know it was in BOINC!